What Are Top Businesses Doing To Measure Workplace Learning?

David Wentworth is an experienced research analyst with Brandon Hall Group in Florida, and a
guest speaker at this year’s Halogen Software customer conference, TalentSpace Live 2017. Get a preview of what
he’ll be talking about at the conference, and register
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As we talk more and more about new learning experiences and incorporating more informal and
experiential learning into our efforts, we inevitably end up on the subject of measurement. Everyone gets
excited talking about collaboration, games, simulations, virtual reality, etc.; but the excitement comes to a
screeching halt once someone asks, “How are we going to measure that?”

It’s not surprising we feel like that. Most organizations really aren’t that good at measuring the
traditional learning they’ve been delivering for years. In Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 Learning Measurement Study,
just 54 percent of companies said they were effective or very effective at measuring formal learning. It’s far, far
worse when it comes to informal (13 percent) and experiential (22 percent) learning.

Wasted learning measurement

When we look at what is being measured, it’s easy to see why we aren't effective. The most commonly used metric for
learning is completion of courses. I have absolutely zero idea how the fact that a certain percentage of employees
completed a course translates into any sort of result. It is simply a measure of the efficiency of learning, not the
efficacy. Numbers two and three aren’t much better: post-course questionnaires and smile sheets, respectively.
Learner engagement is important, but the fact that someone liked something doesn’t tell you much about its
effectiveness, either. Number four on the list is learner assessments. Now we’re into something with a little bit of
teeth, but it still is not a reflection of whether or not the learning is having an impact.

It isn’t until number five on the list that companies start getting concerned with actual results –
meeting corporate objectives, to be precise. What this tells me is that, in general, the learning function is far
more concerned with how well it is delivering learning than it is with what the learning means to the business. The
industry of corporate learning is engaged in some serious navel-gazing, where the outcome learning is learning when
it should be behavior and performance.

This is where we see the transition from
learning consultants to performance consultants. We need learning professionals that are focused on improving
performance metrics, not learning metrics. Instead of fixating on completion rates, we need to be focused on
outcomes that have an actual impact on the business.

Getting learning right

Don’t get me wrong. There are many companies who actually do get
this and are doing it right. In fact, when we look at our data and separate out companies that we consider to be
high performers, something interesting happens. High performers are those companies whose KPIs (revenue, market
share, customer satisfaction, etc.) improve significantly year over year. These companies do a far better job of
measuring learning against actual outcomes than their lower-performing counterparts. Let’s take a look at a list of
outcomes, and see the difference in how many high performers use them as measurements regularly or consistently
versus everyone else:

Source: Brandon Hall Group, 2016 Learning Measurement Survey

In every single category, high performers are far more likely to use these outcomes, sometimes by
factors of two, three, and even five! Moral of the story: High organizational performance is correlated with solid
learning measurement.

I plan to dig into this and more during session at Halogen’s TalentSpace Live 2017, I hope to see you
there!

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By David Wentworth, Guest Contributor

David Wentworth has been a senior research analyst in the human capital field since 2005, previously with the Institute for Corporate Productivity and joining Brandon Hall Group in early 2012. His focus has always been on emerging technologies, with a current concentration on social and mobile learning. He has contributed to several reports published by ASTD, including authoring Mobile Learning: Learning in the Palm of Your Hand, The Rise of Social Media: Enhancing Collaboration and Productivity Across Generations, and Instructional Systems Design Today and in the Future. His work has also appeared in Compensation & Benefits Review, T+D Magazine and CLO Magazine. David is also responsible for survey development and data analysis at Brandon Hall.